LAND AND FREEDOM (86)

Directed by: Ken Loach

Starring: Ian Hart, Rosana Pastor

The Pitch: In the mid-30s, an idealistic young Englishman enlists on the Communist side in the Spanish Civil War.

Theo Sez: Loach isn't exactly a major stylist; he aims mostly not to obscure the point of a scene - which, when the scene has little point, makes for a dull movie (one scene early on, a volunteer who wants to leave and is persuaded to stay, could as well be replaced with blank footage). Fortunately very few scenes in this gloriously passionate movie are less than compelling - and nobody but Loach, a still-committed but clear-eyed old socialist, could have done it justice. The prevailing emotion is of course, despite the attempts at contemporary relevance (the first shot is of National Front graffiti), a wistful nostalgia for an idealistic time when everything seemed possible, before the betrayal of Communism. Yet the film is also able to countenance the great unspeakable, the possibility that the Revolution's most basic tenet, the abolition of private property, might simply be too intractable a controversy ever to resolve (except by force). What the film-makers are nostalgic about is, perhaps above all, a time of ideological debate - however inconclusive - and, by extension, a Cinema Of Ideas, with its inevitable Europeanist implications: it's of course no accident that the American character gets the speeches about diluting ideas (and, implicitly, movie ideas) for mass acceptance - and, of course, is successful. The film is full of debate, both moral and political - so much so, in fact, that one is mildly stunned when it turns into a terrific action movie, with perhaps the most brutally convincing, unadorned battle scenes since COME AND SEE. It's vastly stimulating, which is why its imperfections are forgivable in an age when there's probably too much emphasis on style anyway; certainly the simple, understated approach is perfect for the ending, which could have been sticky if over-manufactured but instead is wonderfully touching.